The Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, Thapelo Olopeng, says he is aware that some of the sporting codes in the country are always surrounded by controversy.

In an exclusive interview with BOPA, Minister Olopeng, said the problem was perpetuated by the fact that most of the sporting codes were administered by volunteers who offered their time for free.

“They do the job out of the love for sport without any renumeration and we encourage them keep on selflessly serving the nation and promoting sport,” he said, adding that they should recognise that their core mandate was to serve the committees not their interest.

“Trust me, they are capable administrators and that is why they keep on volunteering their time, but at the same time we need to appreciate that there are other codes that are doing well in administration,” he said

However, some still had challenges like the BFA who parted ways with their chief executive officer and had since aertised the position, he said. Minister Olopeng said his ministry’s mandate on sport was to promote mass participation in sport in the event increasing competitiveness.

“I think you are aware that we already have some athletes who have turned professional, like Nijel Amos and Isaac Makwala that is our main objective, to make sure that we grow sport to the highest level,” he said.

He further said despite the controversy that surrounds other codes, he was confident that the country had well trained and educated sport administrators who could take sport to the highest level.

He said, again government would continue to train shrewd sports administrators who would in return be in a good position to drive his ministry’s strategy.

Currently Botswana National Olympics Committee (BNOC) was training different sporting codes administrators in Aanced Diploma in Sports Management, he said.

However, the minister said by changing Botswana National Sports Council into a commission, wanted sport to be run in a more professional manner.

He said since they wanted administrators to run the sport according to international expectations, they were left with no option but to train more administrators to augment those who were already trained by BNOC so as to capacitate them to be more efficient.

Talking about his ministry’s relationship with the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, he said they were always in constant talks because the development of an athlete from the foundation started as early as primary schools.

Minister Olopeng said they had a cordial relationship and in their effort to ensure that sport at schools continued, they always looked for sponsors together.

“We cannot start to develop athletes and identify talent at University level, because the most important development is at grassroots level”, he said.